AN EXPLOSIVE but productive week-long encounter between feminist film-makers, distributors, exhibitors, spectators, critics and theorists took place last month as part of the Edinburgh Film Festival.
Perhaps the main question posed was: what is a feminist film practice? It's this I want to try to shed some light on by looking at a few of the more than forty tims screened.
Does a film's feminism come out of the manner in which it's made (collective practice versus individual WOrk. for example); chosen form of the film; or from the context in which it's shown? I don't think there is one answer. Certainly, though, how you the people in your political choice.
One of the films screened was Jan Worth's Taking A Part (UK), which deals prostitution. crucially, deals with the politics of documentary film-making.
The documentary ideal *getting inside a situation to show how really often involves exploitation of the people filmed. The subjects may be playing it straight, but their image becomes part anoualkucl. insistently makes the spectator aware ol ls oroCess In this film LWU medium close-up and facing Callicı as read out experiences prostitution Throughout the film they Albert -that were or from the true-for-all-time film is a also, consoionsly - the an journal?
Taking A Part and of documentary women, in pertormers. into caught in the title, of taking a bart journal. performers taking al c the other A scene from Taking a Part — real prostitutes or actors?
placed different ary locations and 'poses', and this makes one question their status. Are they acres es een rerered tp in the women referred to in the The hesitation between these two options makes for a strong sense of performance — of sex as performance subjects This emphasis is neatly Taking A Part: as prostitutes, or their parts, or taking apart the familiar documentahle. genius, place socialist 70 for SULICLY. radio, citizen methods of dealing prostitution in film.
No such distancing strategies are used in Cristina Perrincioli's Power of Men is the Patience Women (West Germany).
I nIs 15 a drama/ documentary about battered wives which provokes close identification in the audience. It is co-scripted and acted by the battered themselves a rigorous depiction which would be very useful in certain contexts.
Michelle Citron's Daughter Rite THE MEDIA blitz on Einstein's centelar. was completely predictSocialists with an interest in science will look in vain for a clue to what it is all about, as even comrades on Socialist Challenge succumbed by La Diece thar. woułd comfortably graced the pages of the Observer Magazine it didn't even mention the fact that Einstein was a socialist himself. What you get is the Einstein myth - the isolated, solitary coming out of nowhere to his stamp on the course science history.
Einstein had very well developed politics. Here is part of an article, called 'Why Socialism', which he wrote in the US in 1949 at the age of the revolutionary socialist magazine Monthly Review:
*Private capital tends to become concentrated in TAWT hands, because of competition among the capitalists and partly because technological development and the increasing division' of encourage formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments Is an oligarchy private capital the enormous power of which cannot be checked even by a democratically organised political 'This is true since members of legislative bodies selected political parties largely financed or otherwise influenced by capitalists who, for all practical separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that representatives of the people de not in fact sufficiently protect the underprivileged SCCUOI of population.
'Moreover under existing conditPlivaie capitalists inevitably control, main sources ot information (press directly indirectly, education). It is extremely oliCuL. and indeed in most case: impossible, for the to come 1o objective conclusions and to make intelligeni use of his political rights.
The solution? "l am convinced thar there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the eştablishment of a socialist economy, (USA) defines itself against the notion of cinema vérité as the uncontradictory and transparent capturing truth through the neutral eye of the The camera. of Two actresses about typical experiences as sisters and daughters. The scenes are filmed they al C slices-of-life. wives lawn on the viewer that perhaps thest scenes SCUUCILC. home-movie footage of a mother and accompanied by system that would towards social goals.
There was not one other scientist in Einstein's gencration capable of making this argument at any point in their career. In the world have oi pure research Einstein was the first șocialist scientisi. You could never tell it from reading today's papers. The way Einstein got his politics ties into the second piece of the myth: Einstein the isolated genius. Einstein was not at all isolated. He was part of a lively political counter culture that existed in Zurich and Berne at the turn of the century. Social conscience During the period of the great world depression from 1873 to 1890 Bismarck's government in Germany partly introduced many of the repressive measures of the Political anti-semitism was encouraged and anti-socialist passed in 1878. labour Einstein hated it. He left Germany in 1894 without his diploma and a year later renounced citizenship to person. In 1895 he went to university Zurich. revolutionaries • but Russian exiled revolutionaries there or passed through. Alexandra Kollontai, Trotsky, Bakunin and later Lenin all spent time in Zurich private Einstein was a student bohemian.
He wenl surprisingly, for the laboratories. He lived in the cafes of Zurich and he had a number of close friends with whom he discussed physics, philosophy and the politics.
Not part of his inner circle but a friend for twenty years was Felix Adler, a junior lecturer in physics in Zurich when Einstein was a student there. Adler. the son of Victor Adler. jeader Democrais. had heen sen: farher to Zurich io forge: polties fu: he staved close to the rerolunonary movement and wrate = numbe:
by Lenin. In unbelievable) Adler assassinated the Austrian Prime Minister and got off with serving only one year in jail.
down and to break Ie HOuCr Song of the WOnCH contradictory. of improvise scenes demanding documentary Only gradually does it political mentioned above, of 'actual' Other an educational . be oriented behalf.
lived who wal academics.
So, tionary politics.
revolutionary period.
about socialism.
modern stood and working class laws were This German become a stateless only German also famous were Class except, by his ==== 1918 (this is aimos IBSSRSI WIl 3DG (rei. annual two daughters. This footage is słowed re-filmed so that 'innocent' images of family life begin down; while on the soundtrack a woman speaks of the sense of loss and betrayal which has characterised her relationship One question that generated a lot of heat was the idea of femininity. Is it something inherent and unchanging or is it socially determined and therefore open to alteration?
This question is at the heart of The Shirt (Sue Clayton/ Jonathan Curling, UK ), a film about who moved to London to work in the new sweated clothes trade of the 1840s. Here any notion of womanhood as something natural or universal is rejected. Instead the film examines the legal, philanthropic and religious ideas and institutions which surrounded these women.
By placing them side by side via stills, graphics and acted reconstructions, the apparently objective stances of the Church or the law courts are made to look increasingly partial and Amid the establishment's conflicting definitions, The Song of the Shirt begins to construct the women's own position. It's a film wilch ls very excing ana also very Ileft the conference with a stron sense of belonging to a cultural and movement that going places. I'm very grateful for that.
* For details about hiring the films i2 Lse contact The Cinema, Little Newport Street, London WC2 (tel 734 8508).
Einstein submitted testimony on his In 1909 the Einsteins and the Adlers the same building Zurich. Adler wrote to his parents: •We are on extremely good terms with the Einsteins, who live above us, and as things turned out I have becom‹ closer to him than to any of the other The Einsteins live the same Bohemian life as ourselves.
far from being isolated, Einstein was ai integral part of a cultural scene that included revoluThe Austrian and German Social Democratic parties were huge mass parties with strong wings in the pre-war The German SPD in 1924 owned 90 daily newspapers, its own weeklies and monthlies, and operated its own press service This is where Einstein learned He knew, sympathised the movement. Here Einstein on Lenin: 'I know Lenin as a who completely sacrificed himself and devoted all his energy to the realisation of social justice. I de not consider his methods practical, but one thing is certain: men of his type are the guardians and restorers of the conscience of humanity.
Judging from Einstein's Monthly Review article written 40 years later, he never gave up his social conscience and, more important, he never gave up the understanding that the source of social injustice was to be found in capitalist class society, the solution to Cwne WaS SoCaSn No wonder the media continues to mystify Einstein. There's too much to swallow. Einstein remains an enigma to the middle class because he nese joined the middle class. The tirst 'commie, Jew, beatnik' 1o confound media description *This article is extracied tom i mal longer contribulion in Sice 1979 issue of Scienz it. tee ia Pere = +2 50-0 Fztra.. E-L ;PrE Se mE:m 01-43- Ime subscription for individuals is £2 [overseas E3] Socialist Challenge 20 September 1979 Page 13
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scenes are acted after all Interspersed with these acted/réal